Applied Linguistics Quiz

Who said, "The possession of language distinguishes humans from other animals"?

• Ferdinand de Saussure

• Noam Chomsky

• Charles Darwin

• Alan Turing

What is the primary function of language?

• To describe objects

• To express emotions

• To convey meaning and communicate

• To teach others

Which question is central to linguistics?

• What makes animals communicate?

• How does language evolve over time?

• What does it mean to know a language?

• How do we learn foreign languages?

What distinguishes human language from animal communication systems?

• Vocabulary size

• Grammar complexity

• Creativity and displacement

• Tone and pitch

Which of the following is an example of a descriptive grammar statement?

• "You should not use double negatives."

• "People often use double negatives in casual speech."

• "There are no double negatives in English."

• "Double negatives are ungrammatical."

Prescriptive grammar dictates:

• How language should be used

• How people actually speak

• The history of language

• The structure of language across cultures

Which theory is associated with Noam Chomsky regarding the innate structure of language?

• Behaviorism

• Universal Grammar

• Structuralism

• Cognitive Linguistics

The ability to talk about things not present in time or space is called:

• Arbitrariness

• Displacement

• Syntax

• Morphology

Arbitrariness in language means:

• All sounds have meanings related to the object

• The relationship between sound and meaning is random

• Each language has its own set of arbitrary rules

• Words are formed naturally

What is an example of linguistic competence?

• Making a slip of the tongue

• Understanding complex sentences in your language

• Forgetting a word mid-sentence

• Speaking without hesitation